The Flow of Chaos
by Santaen Shadowthief
Summary: A Muggle with the powers of chaos under his wing joins with Harry, Ron, and Hermionie. AU after the third year.
1. Chapter 1: The Chaos begins

The plane tilted its left wing down a few degrees, and the sun reflected painfully off the wings into a pair of dark brown eyes. The young man to whom those eyes belonged was a little irritated that the sun woke him up, and he sat down a little lower in his seat. He ran his fingers through hair that had been flattened on one side through contact with an airline pillow, and pulled his sweatshirt hood over his head in an attempt to block the sun's glare. Stretching his small frame as best he could in the tight airline seat he glanced out the window. An array of miniscule blue waves and the occasional cloud was all that met his gaze.

A quick look at his wristwatch, a farewell present from his older sister, revealed that it would be another four hours before his place landed in America. There an aunt and uncle he hardly knew would pick him up and drive him to their ranch in Pannoly, Montana. Resigned to the fact that the landscape below him would not get any more interesting anytime soon, Adam Johnston found a more comfortable position in his seat, and slept.

Jessica Ann Terry Johnston, commonly known as Jessie, was a tall, slim woman in her mid forties. She and her husband, Arnold Johnston ran the ranch that had been in his family since the Great Depression. When Arnold's older brother called from England and asked if they would be willing to let his son stay with them while he attended a few years of American schools, they were more than delighted to agree. A month later they found themselves standing in front of the baggage claim at the airport, waiting for their nephew to arrive. Jessie was looking around anxiously, hoping to catch a glimpse of a person they had not seen in fourteen years.

"Do you think he will recognize us, Arnold?" she asked her husband in a low, melodious voice that was too often used for screaming at hired workers at the ranch. "I mean, he hasn't seen his aunt or uncle since his father visited us during Christmas fourteen years ago."

Arnold pondered the question as he turned back to study the terminal's people. All sorts of varieties were walking around: elderly couples visiting their grandchildren, men and women on business, entire families, and the occasional teenager. Meanwhile, his wife was rambling about how cute her little nephew was when she last saw him, and oh, how she loved playing with his beautiful brown hair. Most of all she liked staring into his big, deep brown eyes and feeling completely at peace. And so she chattered on, and on, and on.

"Oh, shoot. I completely forgot what Adam was supposed to be wearing. Fiddlesticks! Arnold dearest, do you remember? Normally I wouldn't care but I have no clue what he looks like, and I don't want to miss him.

"Um, a gray sweatshirt and dark khakis, I think."

"Have you seen him yet?"

"My dearest Jessica, if I had seen him already rest assured you would be the first to know," Arnold replied in an annoyed tone of voice. "His plane just landed, so they should be getting off any second.

"Now Jessie, he's just been on a long flight and he's sure to be exhausted. So I don't want you talking his ear off like you do with your lady friends in town. Ya hear me?"

"Honestly Arnold, are you implying that all me and my girls downtown do is talk? But I concede; I'll be the perfect English lady: coy and reserved." She fluttered her eyelids at her husband, anxious to see his reaction.

"Darlin,' you know that you can't not talk. It's in your blood."

"Humph. You just watch me. I won't say a word to the child before you do."

With that she pouted her lips and leaned against the wall. Arnold simply smiled and leaned next to his wife, watching the passengers come and pick up their bags, hoping for just a glimpse of their teenaged nephew.

Adam was tired. Despite his best efforts, he had not been able to sleep for more than two hours on the plane. Too many thoughts had been running circles in his head for him to calm down enough to rest, and as a result he was in a very melancholy mood. Upon entering the terminal, the words "nephew" and "sweatshirt" caught his attention. Wanting to see the speakers before they saw him, he swiftly bent down to retie his shoelace, which had loosened somewhat during the flight. His hood had also slipped off sometime during the flight, and he reached up to put it back on; no sense in being the recipient of too much attention just yet. Once he was sure his hair was completely hidden from view, he stood up and walked down the stairs to the baggage claim.

There were many people waiting for their bags to come off the conveyor belt. Some were alone, but there were a few couples and a handful of families clumped together nearby. Off to the side leaned a man and woman. Both individuals were looking around, scanning the faces of all who passed. Finally the woman's eyes fell on a young teenager wearing a dark gray sweatshirt with the hood up over his head.

"Arnold," she exclaimed, "it's him!" Her excitement influenced all those around her, including her husband. He looked at the young man and smiled. Jessie ran over to the youth, chattering all the way. Arnold smirked and said to himself, "I knew it."

"Adam, oh, you can't possibly know how glad I am to see you. Now you just march right over here and give your Aunt Jessie a great big hug. Come on now, don't be shy."

To Adam, who had been raised in a very proper English home, her enthusiasm was a little disconcerting. It had been who knows how long since anyone in his family had shown that much happiness in public. Nevertheless, he walked forward and gave his aunt something that could have possibly resembled a hug.

"Hi Aunt Jessie. It's nice to see you're cheerful at this ghastly hour. That was without a doubt the longest flight of my life."

Arnold stepped up to the conversing pair and gave Adam a hearty slap on the back.

"Well sport, let's get your bags and get on the road. We've got a long day ahead of us and we need to get you settled in."

"I'm one step ahead of you Uncle Arnold," said Adam hefting a large duffel bag, "this is all I brought with me."

"Oh darling," Jessie said with despair. "It looks as if we are gonna be spending a lot of time in town shopping. School starts next week, and you mister are gonna need a lot of supplies.

"And would you just look at the state of these sneakers: it's disgraceful," she said looking down at Adam's feet. "Yes sir, we are going to be doing a _lot_ of shopping tomorrow."

And with that she steered Adam towards the door and out to the parking lot, babbling all the way. Arnold trotted close behind, chuckling all the way.

The drive to the Johnston ranch from the airport was short, about eighty-seven miles. In a brand new minivan going way over the legal speed limit, the trip took approximately an hour. However, Adam felt that, with his aunt talking a mile a minute about nothing the entire time, it would have been easier on his ears simply to walk. Instead of listening to her relay the neighborhood gossip of the past year, Adam watched the sun rise outside his window and tuned out the world.

His thoughts took him back in London, the city where he had spent all of his life, save a few short vacations in Austria and, once or twice, America. The unending flatness of his immediate surroundings did nothing to allay his longing for a big city simply bursting with people. All this open space seemed a little obscene to a guy accustomed to skyscrapers. He missed his family. He missed the few friends he had. Most of all he missed the comfort that comes from being near one's home.

This entire trip had been his parent's idea. After the accident, they thought it best that their only son should see the world, or so they said. One night Adam overheard his parents talking in their room:

"I cannot deal with that boy any longer. He stays in his room all day and doesn't say a word to anyone. You heard what his teachers said: all of his grades have dropped a full letter since the accident," he heard his father saying. His mother's voice, which was normally soft and soothing, seemed to pierce the closed door and shoot straight through his heart.

"Maybe he needs to go. You know, leave for a year or so, until this whole thing quiets down. I think that having to deal with all the questions in really getting to him."

"As much as I hate to say it, I think you are right. I'll call my brother in the morning and see if Adam can't stay with him for a while. How long…"

Adam couldn't believe his ears. His parents were sending him away, just when he was getting used to the changes the accident had wrought upon his life. Didn't they love him? He felt like he was being cheated, but arguing with authority was not something done in his home.

So deep was Adam in his musings that at first he didn't hear that his uncle was talking to him.

"Wha-," Adam asked. "What did you just say, I zoned out for a minute there."

"I said we'll be coming up on the ranch in a couple of minutes. Listen, is it alright with you if we wait 'til tomorrow to go shopping for you? Most of the stores aren't open this early and your aunt and I need to help your cousin Sherrie with our church's Labor Day barbeque. The thing lasts the whole day, and everything's going to be closed by the time we get back. That alright son?"

"Yeah, that's fine," Adam replied. Aunt Jessie mad a sound and looked at her nephew sadly:

"Oooh, I wish we didn't have to just drop you off and run, but we're running the darned thing, and that means we have to be there from set-up until we're done cleaning. Are you positive you don't mind?"

Why did his aunt insist on mothering him so much?

"Yes, Aunt Jessie, it's really okay. My flight really wore me out, so I think I'm just gonna sleep for a while. You know: jet lag and all."

Apparently Jessie wasn't convinced, but she let the subject go, seeing as how her nephew looked so weary. The next few minutes were spent in a comfortable silence, until Arnold announced,

"Here we are folks: the Johnston Family Ranch."

The driveway was a simple dirt road that branched off the main one, and within seconds Adam could see the place he would be staying for the next year. It was huge! He could only stare in silence as his uncle pulled the van around back. The house alone was larger than any homes back in London, and the grounds extended as far as he could see. Until now he had been wondering how he would be spending his time, but his fears of boredom were dissipated when he saw the barn and garden. Apparently his aunt and uncle were much better off than he had supposed.

"Well sport, welcome to our humble abode," said my uncle as he stepped out of the car and motioned for his nephew to follow him inside. Adam made sure his hood was still covering his hair, and went after his uncle.

"You know your daddy grew up here. He spent his early years working out in the barn after school, and hanging out with his friends at night. He never really enjoyed it; always longed for a chance to live in the big city. He felt uncomfortable with all the wide open space. He always said that he would marry a pretty girl from a big city in the center of the world and raise a family of sky-scraper loving city kids.

"So when a pretty girl from London graced our humble town with her presence, my big brother got his wish. They started dating their senior year in high school, and after graduation they got married and moved off to her native country."

Adam followed his uncle through a maze of halls and doors, passing through the kitchen, dining room, and a good sized rec-room. He was spellbound by the family history Arnold was spouting off, and he hardly paid attention to where he was going. As they trudged up a flight of stairs Adam's uncle continued his story.

"They attended a pretty good school and got their degrees before they started a family. Every so often they would fly back for a visit, Christmas break, summer and the like. But after a while their visit came less and less frequent until they eventually stopped coming altogether. The last time we saw them was fourteen years ago when they came to show off their youngest child, a three year old son."

My uncle stopped in front of a door and looked me in the eye. It must have been comical to watch; a six foot adult staring his five-foot-two nephew straight in the eye. But Adam didn't laugh, didn't even smirk; his face remained locked in an emotionless stare. A little unnerved but still hoping for a response, Arnold put his nephew's bag on the ground and laid his hands on the kid's shoulders.

"That son was you, boy. You've grown up so much since then we hardly recognized you at the airport."

With that he opened the door into a large room. It seemed very cozy: a large four-poster bed, a mahogany wardrobe, and other pieces of furniture that gave the room a simple yet comfortable feel. Adam walked in and looked around. His uncle took a step inside and followed suit, except he the memories from years past. To Adam, it was a whole new chance at life.

"This used to be your father's room," Adam heard Arnold saying. "Many good jokes were told and lots of laughter was voiced in among these walls. Ever since Arnold left this room has seen very few such times. I hope that your being here will bring laughter back into this room.

Oh, there are linens and things in the chest at the foot of the bed, and there are towels in the closet at the other end of the hall. The bathroom is the first door on your left if you'd like to freshen up. Or maybe you could…"

Adam interrupted him, saying,

"Thanks, I'll be fine."

Arnold's face showed a little concern, and it was obvious he wanted his nephew to feel at home before he left for his barbeque.

"Honey, is Adam settled in? We're going to be late for the set-up crew if we don't leave soon." Jessie's voice was pitched so it carried from downstairs.

"In a minute, Jess," Arnold called back to her. "Look, Adam. We have some exchange students living here with us for the school year. They arrived yesterday and are just getting settled in. One of them, the girl, is Jessie's niece. Their school is somewhere in England, but I'm not sure where. Anyway, their rooms are in the basement. If you need anything don't hesitate to ask them; they seem like nice kids, if a little strange. Two of them brought owls along. They're the same age as Sherrie, so they should be about two years younger than you. They'll be going to the same school you will, so you might want to get to know them. You know, get a head start on the whole making friends deal. But it's up to you.

"Well Sport, I gotta run. But I will see you later tonight. We should be back around nine o'clock, but, who knows? Don't hurt yourself 'til we get back, ya hear. Okay, bye now."

And flashing the teen a smile, Arnold walked out into the hall and shut the door, and Adam was alone for the first time in hours.

Adam was, to say the least, the littlest big overwhelmed. Luckily for him, this information had not yet reached his brain, so for the moment he was still capable of coherent thought.

"Well, now what?" he asked himself. Reaching up to his head he pulled off his hood, revealing silvery-white hair cut in a very unique style. Most of it was long enough to be pulled back in a small ponytail, but it was still three inches off his shoulders. The rest of it was a few inches shorter, so it framed his face no matter what he did with the rest of it. He walked over to the mirror and started at his reflection for a few minutes, as if searching weary eyes for any solution to a myriad of problems racing helter-skelter through his mind.

Adam was short for his age, about five-foot-two, yet very powerfully built. In fact, he could have easily passed for a thirteen year old were it not for his eyes; eyes that had seen and felt seventeen years of suffering.

Breaking his gaze away from his reflection, he walked over to his small duffel bag and pulled out two objects: a small contacts case and a mesh bag holding toiletries. Turning to the mirror again, he removed his contacts, and thereby exchanged inconspicuous brown eyes for his natural greenish-yellow ones. He didn't need glasses, and so his vision remained perfectly clear without the contacts, but now he could see his surroundings without the added tint of dark brown lenses. He heaved a sign of relief, and picking up his shower stuff he sauntered down the hall to the bathroom.

Once there he locked the door and pulled off his shirt, revealing large, toned muscles on a very small frame. He turned on the shower, and let the water heat up for a few minutes while he searched the closet outside for a suitable towel. By the time he returned to the bathroom, the room had filled with steam from the hot water and blurred Adam's reflection in the large mirror. Finally, alone in a locked room he felt himself start to relax. He finished undressing and stepped into the shower and let the near-scalding water wash his worries and stresses down the drain.

He washed his hair for the first time in two days and reveled in the joy that comes from being clean. He started to wash his body, but stopped when he got to his stomach. The scars on his abs stood out against his tanned skin, and as always they brought back memories of his long, painful recovery from the accident two years ago.

He and his class had been on a field trip at the plant where his father worked as a chemical engineer when a freak accident caused one of the haz-mat tanks to rupture. Adam and two of his classmates were drenched in a thick red liquid, and they were immediately rushed to the Emergency Room. The two classmates died from irreparable damage to their systems, but Adam survived. Survived, but was forever changed, both in body and in spirit.

Prior to the accident Adam had been a fun-loving kid with dark brown hair and deep brown eyes. He was the most popular kid in school: student body president and captain of the cross country team. But when he emerged from the ICU two weeks after the accident, he had silvery-white hair and freakish yellow-green eyes. His friends all shunned him, and he was seen as a freak that should have died with his classmates. He was forbidden to run for the cross country team for fear of what could happen to his body under intense stress, and his teachers were afraid to accept his requests for tutoring. His grades fell, and he spent hours on end in his room staring out the window at little kids playing on the playground with their parents. Then his own parents came up with the idea to send Adam to his uncle's house in the States, and Adam stopped talking even to them. He had retreated completely from a world that seemed to not want him in it: and so he left.

The feeling of falling brought Adam back to the present. His feet slipped out from under him, and he landed painfully on his back. With a groan he reached up and turned off the water. Pulling himself out of the shower took some doing, but he managed to get out, dry off and stumble back to his room. Back in his room he pulled on a pair of baggy sweat pants and made his bed using linens from the chest. Not thirty seconds after he finished did the realization that he was overwhelmed catch up to him, and he collapsed onto the bed. So exhausted was he that when his uncle came in late that night and pulled the covers over him, he didn't even stir, but settled deeper into a dream-ridden sleep.

END CHAPTER 1


	2. Chapter 2: The morning after

Adam sat up with a start. Unfortunately for him, the creature that had been sitting on his chest did not take kindly to this action, and made its presence known to Adam in the form of several small, sharp, and claw-like knives. Alright, fine: the cat simply scratched him. But at six o'clock in the morning after a night of nightmares, the boy was unable to accept the fact that small cats were not, in fact, small demons waiting to rip out his soul with talons and fined-tuned machines. Needless to say, Adam and the cat relationship did not get off to a very good start. On the other hand, it must be noted that cats, though generally very agile, are not very skilled at escaping from the clutches of heavy quilts which are spontaneously thrown on top of them by cranky teenagers. What a pity.

Bleary-eyed Adam looked at the struggling lump buried under his quilt and smirked. However, at this point his mind reminded him that it was six o'clock in the morning, and he was not supposed to be awake, much less smirking, at this hour. Adam couldn't deny the logic of this fact, and prepared to jump back in his bed. Luckily for both him and the cat, Adam's short-term memory started to kick in and he looked at the lump on his bed, this time with frustration that it was under the covers and not him. Now, around this time his logic centers started up and Adam realized that this was not his bed, that he did not own a cat, and therefore what the heck was going on here?

After processing this thought for a bid Adam's brain reiterated to itself that it was still six o'clock in the morning and Adam was still not in his bed asleep. Unfortunately for Adam's brain, his body had decided to pump out some adrenaline during the brief scuffle with the cat and did not want to go back to sleep. The brain knew that it had only a few milliseconds left before the adrenaline reached it and wiped away all thoughts of naps and sleep and – too late. _Stupid adrenal gland_, thought the brain as Adam's body decided that the brain would now be awake. The brain, however, disagreed. _Wonder where they keep the tea in this place_, it thought (as if it could do anything else but think). _If this stupid body of Adam's is going to insist on being active, I might as well get enough caffeine in it to keep me conscious._ The brain decided to take a short nap while Adam and his body strolled to the bathroom for a quick session of early-morning grooming.

"Mmmm, that felt good," said Adam as he reentered his room after a rather refreshing shower. Now he felt sufficiently awake to return to that earlier dilemma: What the heck is going on?

He wandered around the room, pawing at his still-wet silver hair while memories from yesterday filtered into his conscious thought. Leaving his parents behind at the airport, the long flight to the states, meeting his aunt and uncle, talking with his uncle in the hall, falling off his broomstick after confronting a figure in a black cloak, the cat, the…

_Wait a second. What was that? I've never fallen off a – oh right, my dream. Rather strange one now that I think about it. No idea where it came from, I've never even been on a broomstick. I wonder if – OWWW._

This last little expletive was a result of Adam's toe coming into contact with a box. He stumbled, and fell onto the floor. On his way down he grabbed the quilt off his bed in an attempt to slow his fall, but failing miserably. In a curious series of unfortunate events, the cat happened to be in the quilt as Adam pulled it off the bed, and fell along with him, landing claws first on Adam's leg after a spectacular mid-air twist. Unfortunately for the cat, Adam did not appreciate this display of agility, and chased the cat out of the room, down the stair, through the hall and out the front door.

He would have pursued the feline fiend further, but a rather large and solid cardboard box jumped in his way and maliciously maligned his footing, causing him to prostrate himself rather forcefully on the pavement, causing further pain and giving him just one more thing to add to his list of "Why I Truly and Thoroughly Hate Mornings."

So preoccupied with this train of thought was he that at first he didn't hear the muffled laughter behind him. Adam raised himself to his knees and brushed off his hands before looking around. There, on the front steps sat a girl, a young woman really, making a valiant effort to keep from bursting out into full-fledged laughter. Adam shook his head and turned around, rising to his feet in the process. He inspected his hands for damage while he waited or the girl to control herself.

Finally, after about two minutes she had taken sufficient deep breaths that she was capable of coherent speech, and she lifted her finger to point at Adam as she said,

"Should I ask, or do I content myself with the privilege of seeing a shirtless stranger first thing in the morning? Not that I mind, I'm just curious as to why you ran out of my house chasing my cousin's cat only to trip over a very noticeable package addressed to me at six-fifteen in the morning while wearing only a pair of shorts."

Adam looked down and realized for the first time that, indeed, he had run out of the house wearing only his running shorts. This thought marched around his brain for a second or two before it also occurred to Adam that he was now standing in front of a young woman, presumably his cousin, who was about five inches taller than he was, while wearing only his running shorts at six-fifteen in the morning. His brain had only started to wake up, and refused to do any complex thinking before there were at least six hundred milligrams of caffeine in its body. Therefore it took another couple of seconds before Adam's brain worked its way through these thoughts and concluded that Adam should be embarrassed. Finally after a grand total of three or four seconds Adam felt his cheeks redden as he looked up and addressed the girl.

"Hello there. Um, lovely weather we're having. I was just…"

He faltered when he saw the girl smothering another round of laughter.

"Yeah, you might say so," she replied, covering her grinning mouth with her hand. "You know, it's a lot nicer inside. And you might want to get some clothes on before my mom or even worse our guests see you like that."

She smiled at Adam; the first genuine smile he could remember receiving since the accident. He felt his defenses give way and he smiled back as the girl continued.

"I'm Sherrie, by the way. Jessie and Arthur are my mom and day, but they're out shopping right now. Hey, are you hungry? I'm not a bad cook, so if you come inside I can make you some breakfast while you get dressed. Oh, and do you think you could grab that box for me? I just can't seem to lift it. Thanks a bundle. My cousin and her friends are over right now so they will probably join you for breakfast if you don't mind. They're pretty cool, although I don't know the two boys that well yet. They're here from England, did you know. Something about an exchange program, but they wouldn't tell me from which school. What did you say your name was again? Well, anyway, that cat actually belongs to my cousin. And if you see any owls around they belong to her friends. Oh, and by the way – did you say something?"

Now it was Adam's turn to hide a grin. Sherrie was had just turned to go inside, and now she looked back at him. Adam was just standing there trying to hold back his elation. He didn't think that she had taken more than two breaths during her entire monologue: no one was like that back home, and her personality was such a change that Adam couldn't help but laugh. Finally he broke down, though he tried his hardest to be polite.

"Adam," he got out between laughs. "My name's Adam. I guess I am a little peckish. Breakfast sounds great." He easily lifted the heavy package and followed his cousin inside. "Say, do you know how to make tea?"


	3. updates are here

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I really hope this works right

Santaen


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